[RRtK] Family Snapshots

Beastman Army from Microworld Games

Just tidying up after the end of 2013 and thought I would share these photos of my three completed 6mm Fantasy Armies as posted on my website.

[RRtK] Campaign: Summer 1012

At the end of Spring 1012 National Morale of all Nations at war was checked.

The Beastmen of the Wildlands were in fine fettle. Their bloodless victory at Mt Gorfang filled them with confidence to continue the war with the Goblins of the Szepetnek Mountains. In spite of losing Mt Gorfang to the Beastmen, the Goblin's victory over Valgasmaa at the Vale of Barzak had inspired them to redouble their efforts to win the war. Meanwhile, the people of Valgasmaa were downcast - National Morale dropped to 2 on the back of news of Duke Grimoald's defeat.

At the beginning of Summer 1012, King Chlodomer of Valgasmaa called up the last of his levies - two units of Foot Men-at-Arms, a unit of Light Horse, and a unit of Arquebusiers. At the same time, Pater Vincenzo Sgro was also recruiting in Foranimenagii with two units of Knights, a unit of City Spearmen and a unit of City Crossbowmen being raised.

With the harvest nearly ready, and news of dissatisfaction reaching him from across the border, Vincenzo Sgro lead his army of 11,500 men north up the Rhime River against Ritteurhof in Valgasmaa. Rumours that the Foranimenagii might be on the march had been the sole reason that King Chlodomer of Valgasmaa had not thrown Duke Grimoald into the Oubliette of the Iron Tower of Steinlah. Leaving him with a fraction of the army he had misused in the mountains to hold off the expected Goblin invasion of Oberlichenwald, King Chlodomer hurried west to engage Vincenzo Sgro.

As expected, King Serogn lead his victorious Goblin Army down into Oberlichenwald, but he had craftily detached Kozurn of Mt Gorfang to defend Mt Hofburg against High Chief Kypselos and his Beastmen. "Beat 'em at Hofburg, and you can march on Gorfang," he had told his restless subordinate as he took the road down onto the grasslands of Oberlichenwald.

It would seem that Summer would be a busy month.

[RRtK] Campaign Spring 1012: The Battle of Barzak Vale

Spring 1012: The Battle of Barzak Vale
Duke Grimoald of Oberlichenwald in Valgasmaa lead an army of 7250 men on a raid against Mt Hofburg, the capital of the Szepetnek Mountains. Serogn, the Goblin King of the Szepetnek Mountains, assembled an army of 11,800 warriors and offered battle to the invaders in Barzak Vale, just south of Mt Hofburg.

The Goblin Army				Valgasmaa Army
5	Archers	Foot Skirmish		2	Knights - Elite, Shock	Mounted Melee
8	Goblins	Foot Melee		3	Archers	Foot Skirmish
1	Ogres	Foot Melee		3	Infantry	Foot Melee
2	Wolf Riders	Mounted Skirmish		2	Mercenary Arquebusiers	Foot Missile
2	Black Moon Goblins	Foot Melee		1	Mercenary Pike	Foot Melee
				2	Mercenary Light Horse	Mounted Skirmish

On the grassy plain at the northern end of the Vale, Serogn deployed his wolf riders in a column at the right of his line. He then deployed his Goblins in a double column, with his archers in a line parallel with the head of the column. Behind the archers, he stationed his Ogres, while his Black Moon Goblins were stationed in reserve, parallel with the rear of the Goblin column.

Barzak Vale - the armies deploy

Over the central hill, across the southern end of the Vale, Duke Grimoald drew up his army. His Light Horse formed his left wing while two units of archers formed his skirmish line. Behind them, Grimoald formed up his two units of knights in front of a pike unit and three units of Men-at-Arms. On his right flank, Duke Grimoald placed another unit of archers and two units of Arquebusiers.

The right of the Goblin Line

The left of the Goblin Line

The Valgasmaani deployment

The main Valgasmaani battleline

The Valgasmaani right flank

Hesitantly (as, after deployment, I realized that with a WR of 2, Grimoald could only activate two groups per turn), Duke Grimoald pushed forward the Light Horse on his left flank, and the Archers and Arquebusiers on his right, while refusing his center. Over the hill, King Serogn dispatched his wolf riders against the Light Horse while ordering his mass column of foot to advance. The faster moving Archers, with the Ogres in support, pulled ahead and gained the crest of the ridge, while King Serogn remained to the rear with his two units of Black Moon Goblins.

The Goblin battle line crests the ridge

The Wolf Riders battle the Light Horse

On Duke Gimoald's left flank, the Mercenary Light Horse was soon engaged with the Wolf Riders. After a short action, one unit of Wolf Riders fled the field while the other retired to the very margin, where it waited the result of the battle.

Midway through the battle, the Knights are not making headway in the center
 while the Valgasmaa skirmishers and Light Horse are having success on the flanks

On Duke Grimoald's right flank, the Archers and Arquebusiers soon caused the Goblin Archers to retire in confusion. He had halted the Archers covering his front and moved his battle line closer to the hill, even as the Goblin column crested it, halted, and began to expand into line. Grimoald ordered his Light Horse to harass the end of the Goblin line, even as his Knights moved up to attack the Ogres on the hill.

As King Serogn moved his Black Moon Goblins up to fill the gap on the Goblin left, the Valgasmaani Knights charged home. Both the Ogres and the Black Moon Goblins held the charge of the Knights and threw them back. It was here that Duke Grimoald discovered that his line of infantry were too close behind the Knights.

The Goblins begin to push down the southern slope of the hill

Again and again, the Knights charged desperately up the hill against the Ogres and Black Moon Goblins and, again and again, they were thrown back. King Serogn in his chariot led the Black Moon Goblins to first hold, and then to advance against the Knights.

On the Goblin right, the lead units of the great Goblin column charged down the hill, dispersing the Light Horse and sweeping away the Valgasmaani Men-at-Arms unit on the left of the Human battle line. In desperation, Duke Grimoald about faced the rest of his foot and marched them back to give room to the Knights struggling on the lower slopes of the hill. The careful withdrawal quickly became a rout as the Knights, exhausted from the battle on the ridge, broke and ran.

Seeing that the battle was lost, Duke Grimoald quit the field. Two units of Archers were lost in the rout but the rest of the army eventually reassembled at Oberlichenwald a couple of days later.

---

Well, that was a fun battle. I'm pretty sure I got some rules wrong, and the Retire rule caught me out with Duke Grimoald's deployment. As Grimoald has a WR of 2, I am assuming that what he lacked in experience, he attempted to make up for in enthusiasm.

King Serogn was in a tight spot. With two invasions, he had to decide whether to split his army and attempt two battles (and risk defeat in detail), or concede a province, risk unrest, but concentrate on beating his toughest foe first. Having beaten back the Valgasmaani, his gamble may have paid off as Kypselos' Beastmen have fielded a smaller force - though they do have a mage.

The Goblin figures in this battle are by Baccus 6mm while the Ogres and Lesser Goblin Archers are by Irregular Miniatures. All the Human figures are from Irregular Miniatures Men of the West range.

[RRtK] Campaign: 1012 Spring

1012 - Spring:
League of Foranimenagii - Prince Vincenzo Sgro secures the continued dominance of the League by the Sgro Familia of Tagliacozzo.

No Heroes are available this season.

The Pyromancer, Adamo the Red, a Level 1 Magic User, offers his services at the Sgro Court in Tagliacozzo, Foranimenagii, and is taken into service by Prince Vincenzo Sgro.

A Level 1 Weatherwitch and a Level 2 Druid, Pharlis Taproot, offer their services in the Beastman city of Jabelitz. High Chief Kypselos takes Pharlis Taproot into service.

Armies are recruited. Both Valgasmaa and Foranimengarii retain spare recruitment rolls, just in case. Wildlands and Szepetnek Mountains use all their recruitment rolls.

Valgasmaa goes to War with Szepetnek Mountains.
Wildlands goes to War with Szepetnek Mountains.

King Chlodomer of Valgasmaa permits Duke Grimoald of Oberlichenwald to launch a raid into the Szepetnek Mountains to overawe the Goblin tribes who have been making a nuisance of themselves. At the head of a thousand Knights and just over six thousand infantry, Duke Grimoald marches on Mt Hofburg.

Meanwhile, High Chief Kyselos of the Wildlands decides that his people need more living space and, at the head of  just over 5000 of his warriors, launches a raid against Mt Gorfang.

King Serogn of the Szepetnek Mountains summons the Goblin tribes to battle near Mt Hofburg. Kozurn of Mt Gorfang reluctantly complies, marching south-eastward and leaving his homesteads to be sacked by the Beastmen. If Serogn fails to defeat the Valgasmaani, then he will probably not remain Goblin King for long.

Just south of Mt Hofburg lies the Vale of Barzak, a narrow passage between forests and outlier foothills of the mountain. As Duke Grimoald marches north, his scouts bring word that the Goblin King has come out to meet him.

[RRtK] Rally Round the King Campaign set up

With some annual leave time for the Christmas season, I decided to start my Rally Round the King campaign. A hard drive failure in the midst of my preparations has delayed things but I have managed to plot the first Spring Move and fight the first battle.

As the continued existence of my expanded campaign map is still in doubt (I need some drive necromancers to have a look at the dodgy hard drive), I have been forced to revert to the earlier map I posted a little while ago.

Map of Orbis Terrarum

To keep a track of people and events, I set up a series of spread sheets:

Province, and Provincial Leaders WR value, spread sheet

This first one records the provinces controlled by each state, who the leader of the province is, and what his War Rating is. Thus, we have five states - the Kingdom of Valgasmaa under King Chlodomer; the Confederation of Foranimenagii under the Primera Familia Sgro of Tagliacozzo; the Wildlands under High Chief Kypselos of Jabelitz; the Goblin Clans of the Szepetnek Mountains under King Serogn of Mt Hofburg; and the Mountain Giants of Jotunheim under King Thrym of Mt Jotun.

Mt Jotun is in the northern mountains, near the white hex - the Rhimebeard Glacier.

As other states are added to the campaign, both the spread sheet, and the campaign map, will expand.

[RRtK] Goblins, Goblins, marching up and down

It took a little longer than I anticipated, but I finally finished the bulk of my Goblin Army for Rally Round the King, as well as a chunk of the Mountain Giant Army. The majority of the Goblin figures are from Baccus 6mm - a couple of packs of infantry and a pack of wolf riders, as well as a command pack and a sheet of flags.

Goblin Army in all its glory, plus Mountain and Hill Giants on the grey bases at the back.

60 cavalry or 120 infantry per pack sounds a lot, and it is, but Baccus produce nice figures, and I soon worked out a way of painting the strips relatively quickly. The fiddliest part was the cutting up of the figure strips to mount on the bases.

As the wolf riders are "light cavalry", I went with six figures to the base, which gave me 10 bases - about twice the number I need for the basic army list. I hadn't notice initially but the wolf riders contain a mixture of figures with shields, figures without shields, and figures with shields slung over their backs. This variety, plus staggered mounting on the unit base, allowed me to create an over-all "loose" or "undisciplined" look, which was what I was after.

L to R: Irregular Ogres, Baccus Goblin wolf riders. Baccus Goblin infantry in the background.

I found that 14 infantry, in two rows of seven, produced the nicest fit for my 40mm x 20mm bases. The two packs of Goblin Infantry - 240 figures - therefore produced 17 bases/elements with two figures left over. The sheet of 12 flags neatly matched the 12 command strips (six in each Infantry pack) and I produced several "infantry only" elements to allow me to field double-depth "attack columns" of Goblins if I so wished.

I replaced the standard bearers' flag staffs with staffs cut from high tensile quilting pins as the thin, lead staffs had all bent in shipping and obviously wouldn't survive much handling. It proved impossible to drill out the standard bearers' hands to take the new staffs, but careful positioning and painting pretty much hides the fact that the new staffs have been added.

Each Infantry strip comes with one speargoblin and three goblins with swords - each swordgoblin is slightly different, either having a different shield type or different sword. I put all the speargoblins into separate units as I could create a uniformed and disciplined look with them. The Black Moon Goblins of Rally Round the King are more organized than the run-of-the-mill line filler. And then I played around with the swordsgoblins to create a more irregular look for the bulk of the line units. A little splash of colour on some of the shields pretty much finished them off. Skin colour-wise, I opted for a tan, preferring Tolkien to Games Workshop as my point of reference.

Goblins from Baccus 6mm

The Rally Round the King Goblin Army also includes Ogres and archers - neither of which Baccus produces - so I recruited some Ogres from Irregular Miniatures 6mm Fantasy line (sourced from Eureka Miniatures in Australia), and some Lesser Goblin Archers (from the same source). The Irregular Ogres are quite nice, though only in one pose, and have a little goblinoid riding their shoulders like a mahout. I gave my ogres a grey-blue skin colour, implying a possibly photophobic, night-haunting cannibal monster type.

Ogres from Irregular Miniatures.

The Lesser Goblin Archers were a little disappointing, resembling little, bow-armed, bundles of laundry. I also got my numbers wrong with them - I assumed that they would deploy en mass and ordered enough strips to make put up several elements with 10 or so figures per element. I then realized that Goblin archers deploy as skirmishers so I only needed five figures per element.

Lesser Goblin Archers from Irregular Miniatures.

I am thinking of reworking the Goblin list so I might include the option to field low REP massed archers, such as the Lesser Goblins.

L to R: Lesser Goblin Archers from Irregular, Goblin General, champions and wizards from Baccus, Mountain Giant from Microworld Games at rear.

The Goblin command pack from Baccus included some real gems. The General rides in a two-wolf chariot - he actually looks a lot like an Etruscan or Villanovan with his spear and spiked helmet. There are two wizards or magic-users including one with an enormous hat (I painted it blue, as you do), two foot champions - one with a two-handed sword as long as he is tall - and a champion mounted on a wolf.

L to R: Goblin Wizard, Goblin Champion, Goblin Magic User from Baccus 6mm.

They are nice figures with lots of character and seeing the General's chariot got me thinking about adding a chariot option to the Goblin Army list which, to me, meshes in well with the generally slightly anarchic, slightly archaic nature of Goblin technology.

Earth Giant from Microworld Games

While working on my Goblins, I managed to finish a group of figures for my Mountain Giant Army. The inspiration for this army came from seeing the Microworld Games Earth Giant. The Earth Giant is not cheap - $US5 for one figure is crazy for 6mm, but the Earth Giant stands about 25mm tall. The Earth Giant became Thrym, the Mountain Giant and King of the Giants in Jotunheim. As a sentient mountain, I painted him up in earth shades and added a little flock to him. I went for a barren, shale-like base finish to give the impression that the giants were coming down off the bare mountain tops and high ice fields.

To Thrym, I added some giants from Irregular Miniatures - the two headed giant and some Hill Giants. I'm not so happy with the two headed giant. I made his skin blue but I think I'll move it more towards grey and make him a Storm Giant.

Thrym and the Two-headed Storm Giant

The Hill Giants are the most humanoid of the giants and I painted them up like gargantuan peasants or vikings.

Goblins from Baccu 6mm and Hill Giants from Irregular Miniatures

The Mountain Giant Army also includes trolls and ogres - I already have a couple of Irregular ogres for the Goblin Army and have picked up some more for the Giant Army. The Irregular trolls are rather disappointing being essentially one, rather odd, pose.

Irregular Trolls in front of Microworld Earth Giant and Irregular Two-headed Giant.

I've just seen Microworld's Dread Ogres from their new Dark Alliance range, and this has decided my choice of figures for both my Dark Elf Army (Microworld's Dread Elves) and more trolls.

To be painted: the balance of my Men of the West Army/Army of Valgasmaa from Irregular; Beastmen Army from Microworld Games.

Incoming: Irregular Medieval and Early Renaissance figures for my League of Foranimenagii Army

Planned: Dark Elves (Microworld's Dread Elves); Dwarves (probably Microworld); Orcs (Irregular)

[RRtK] 6mm Painting Progress

Last week, my first order of 6mm Irregular Miniatures Men of the West figures arrived from Eureka Miniatures in Australia. It took me a little while to work out a basing system I was happy with, but once that was done, the actual painting went pretty quick. 

I ended up using plastic card for the bases and decided to go with a 40mm frontage and a 20mm depth. Generals and heroes are mounted on washers.

Skirmisher Archers are mounted five to a base - 1 strip; Melee Infantry (billmen) are 20 to a base - 4 strips in two rows; Pike are 30 to a base - five strips plus a command strip in three rows; Heavy Cavalry (knights) are eight to a base - 2 strips, although I had to trim some of the strips to fit the 40mm frontage; Skirmisher Crossbowmen are mounted six to base - 1 strip plus a spare pikeman as a standard bearer; Light Cavalry are mounted five to a base - 1 strip.

The General is from the Champions pack which consists of one mounted and three foot Champions. I added a spare Knight as an army standard bearer (I still have to make the standards).

The three pike units look quite impressive when viewed from this angle. I was rather pleased in the amount of detail I was able to catch on this figures, including the archers' hands.

I have another order inbound from Eureka Miniatures to give me more Knights and Melee foot troops, plus some shot. Lined up to paint next are my Goblins from Baccus - though I will need to get some Goblin archers from Irregular/Eureka as Baccus doesn't make Goblin Archers. And after the Goblins in the painting cue, are the exquisite Beastmen from Microworld Games.

[RRtK] Teeny, Tiny Toy Soldiers Arrive

Yesterday, my first order of 6mm figures for my Rally Round the King project arrived  from Nic at Eureka Miniatures. I had ordered a selection from the Irregular Miniatures Men of the West range as the basis of the Valgasmaan army, and then spent a couple of hours working out how I was going to base them.

I have decided to use 40mm x 20mm plasticard bases as the frontages match other basing systems, and the plasticard is both thinner, and not likely to curl like card. At the moment, I'm intending to base the heavy infantry four strips to the base, while the pikemen will be six strips to a base (five strips of pike and a command strip). Light Horse are one strip (six figures) while the Knights will probably be two strips to a base.

So, once I had the basing worked out, I had to snip some of the strips to fit everything on the way I wanted them, and then tack-glued the figures to some painting trays. Today, I undercoated everything - I'm pretty impressed with the amount of detail that a wash of watery black undercoat brought out. 

The command strips, top right, has a pair of nicely moulded flags though, at this scale, they're probably about six inches thick. 

The Knights have Maximilian-style metal barding. The lances, apparently, are a point of weakness so I have been very careful when straightening them.

I'm looking forward to putting some colour on these guys.

---

While I haven't done any more work on my campaign map, I have had some further thoughts.

The white area in the northern, snow-capped  mountains is a glacier, which is also the source of the Great River. The glacier is called the Rimebeard and is rumoured to be the hold of the Mountain Giants. The province of Jaebelitz, north of Mt Gorfang, has been over run by an army of Beastmen, who are determined to establish their own state. Foranimenagii explorers are attempting to establish a colony on new-found lands to the south of the sea. They will soon discover that these lands are not empty.

[RRtK] Small Beginnings

Arkansan, on The Miniatures Page, asked whether gamers developed their own worlds for wargaming. This was a rather synchronistic question as he is planning to run a solo Rally Round the King campaign, as I am, and I am in the process of developing the initial maps for my campaign world.

The consensus amongst the respondents on the TMP thread was to start out small. The danger of trying to map everything before play begins is that you just keep mapping and never get to play. Having done this sort of thing in the past, I concur.

This time, I started doodling around with an abstract "province", or area, map first.The idea was to establish the relationship between various locations before I actually began the more pictorial style map.

Now, I could have just used the map of Talomir from the Rally Round the King book, but where's the fun in that? As I had Men of the West from Irregular Miniatures, Goblins from Baccus, and Beastmen from Microworld all on their way to me, as well as being rather taken with the City States Country type from the rules, that sort of indicated what areas I needed to develop.

The four lower boxes in the map, above, are the four provinces of the Foranimenagii City States (each province contains a city) which stretch along the northern coast of the sea. In 15mm, I have an Italian Condotta Army and have always been interested in Italian History from the Medieval period through to the Renaissance. I therefore decided that the Foranimenagii States are Italian-ish in culture, are trading ports, and have a reasonable technology level.

Inland from the Foranimen Coast lies Valgasmaa (the four red provinces). Valgasmaa - home of the Men of the West - is a unified, late Medieval-type Kingdom. Three of the Valgasmaan provinces lie along a major river that continues south through a Foranimenagii province, before falling into the sea. The eastern province of Valgasmaa is a rolling plain, bounded along its eastern march by another river. A chain of mountains (the green provinces) forms Valgasmaa's northern border. A pass, to the north-east, leads to a transmountain province, but this province is now independent.

The transmountain province became cut off from the southern provinces of Valgasmaa when a tribe of Goblins moved into the mountains. From Mt Gorfang, the Goblins were able to close the pass and this left the transmountain province to fend for itself.

At this point, I have two potential conflicts - Valgasmaa vs the Goblins, to drive them out of the mountains and reopen the pass to the north; and Valgasmaa's march to the sea, a campaign to secure the mouth of the Great River and give Valgasmaa access to the lucrative sea trade.

Now to fill in the details.

Stage one of the actual map, made in Hexographer

Edit: And here's the map with some work done on it:

Now it looks more like the sketch map

In Which The Blogger Ponders the Future of the Blog

It has been nearly two months since I last posted an update here.

We haven't actually played a game of In Her Majesty's Name since I completed my Selenites. Instead, we've played several games of Ronin, a new Skirmish game from Osprey set in Feudal Japan, and I've started painting up a Buntai (Ronin-speak for a company).

Also, I've discovered a set of Fantasy battle rules from Two Hour Wargames called Rally Round the King, which I really like. As I really can't see myself doing Fantasy gaming in either 25mm or 15mm, I've decided to branch out into 6mm. This is likely to be a solo project as I can't really see my group wanting to get into another period. Fortunately, Rally Round the King has solo play rules.

So, what is to become of this blog? I'm thinking of expanding my gaming coverage to cover all three systems as starting up extra blogs seems like a dispersion of resources. The Endoscope will continue, but there will be other elements in it.